How To Use Reverb On Drums

Getting drum reverb right in a metal mix is a balancing act. Go too far, and you get a washy, muddy mess that drowns your guitars and kills the punch. Use too little, and your drums sound sterile and disconnected, like they’re playing in a padded closet.

The goal isn’t just to make the drums sound “wet.” It’s about strategically creating size, depth, and most importantly, glue. A great drum reverb makes the entire kit sound like a single, cohesive instrument playing in a real, powerful space.

So, how do you get that massive, professional sound without the mud? It comes down to a specific workflow: being deliberate about which drums you send to the verb, and a killer technique for blending it all in perfectly.

Setting Up Your Reverb Bus: The Foundation

First things first: never, ever slap a reverb plugin directly onto an individual drum track or your main drum bus. You need control. The pro-level way to do this is with an aux/send track.

Here’s the basic setup in any DAW:

1. Create a new stereo Aux/Bus track. Name it something obvious like “Drum Verb.”
2. Insert your reverb plugin of choice onto this new channel.
3. From your individual drum tracks (snare, toms, etc.), use a “send” to route a portion of the signal to your “Drum Verb” channel.

This gives you independent control over how much of each drum hits the reverb, and allows you to EQ and process the reverb signal itself without affecting your dry drums.

Choosing Your Weapon: Reverb Plugins

You can get great results with tons of different plugins, but for that modern metal sound, you’ll want something that can create a clean, spacious sound.

• The Classics: Emulations of the Lexicon 480L or 224 are legendary for a reason. Check out the UAD Lexicon 480L or the Relab LX480 for that iconic, lush sound.
• Modern Workhorses: Plugins like Valhalla VintageVerb (try the “Plate” or “Hall” algorithms), FabFilter Pro-R, or LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven are all go-to choices for top-tier producers.

For a great starting point, load up a Plate or medium Hall preset with a decay time around 1.5 – 2.5 seconds and a pre-delay of about 20-40ms. The pre-delay is key—it lets the initial crack of the drum cut through before the reverb wash kicks in, preserving your transient impact.

Which Drums Get the Reverb? A Send-by-Send Breakdown

This is where the decision-making starts. You have to decide what your goal is. Are you trying to add massive size, or just a little bit of space? This will determine what you send to your reverb bus.

The Snare: Your Main Character

The snare is almost always the star of the show when it comes to drum reverb. It’s what defines the size of the “room” your drums are in. Ensuring you start with a clean signal by learning how to remove unwanted snare ring will give you the best results.

Start by sending your main snare track to the reverb bus. Play with the send level. Send a little bit for some subtle depth, or crank it up to hear what an extreme effect sounds like. You’ll quickly find the line between a powerful, spacious snare and an over-the-top snare bomb effect. This is your primary tool for creating the overall reverb character.

The Kick Drum: Proceed with Caution

Sending kick drum to a reverb, especially in heavy or fast metal, is risky business. The low-frequency information in a kick reverb tail can easily build up and create a huge, muddy cloud that fights with the bass and low-end of your guitars, disrupting the crucial balance between the kick and bass.

For many modern metal mixes, the kick gets no reverb at all. But if you’re working on a slower, doomier track, or just want to experiment, here’s how to do it safely:

1. Start with the kick drum’s send fader all the way down.
2. While the track is playing, slowly bring the send level up until you can just barely feel it adding a hint of space.
3. If it starts to sound muddy or boomy at all, back it off or kill it completely.

Pro-Tip: EQ Your Reverb Return

The number one trick for using kick drum reverb (or any drum reverb, really) without creating a mess is to EQ the reverb itself. On your “Drum Verb” aux track, place an EQ plugin after the reverb plugin.

Use a high-pass filter and cut out all the low-end mud, starting around 150-250Hz. You can also use a low-pass filter to roll off some of the harsh high-end sizzle. This keeps the reverb focused in the mid-range, providing space and depth without the low-end clutter. This is a non-negotiable step for clean, powerful mixes. The same principles apply to the dry signal, where knowing how to EQ a metal kick drum is fundamental.

Toms and Overheads: The Supporting Cast

Toms: You’ll almost certainly want to send your toms to the same reverb as your snare. This puts them in the same sonic space and helps the fills feel connected to the rest of the kit, which is a key goal when mixing drums.

Overheads: This one is a judgment call. Do your overhead mics already have a good amount of natural room sound in them? If not, there are other ways to make a small drum room sound massive. But if your overheads are very dry and close-mic’d, sending a little bit to the reverb can help glue the cymbals into the overall drum picture. Try it and see if it helps or hurts.

The “Top-Down” Blending Technique for Perfect Glue

Okay, here’s the workflow that ties it all together. Once you have the individual sends from your snare, toms, and kick (if you’re using it) feeding the reverb, you need to blend the whole effect into the mix.

1. Get Your Send Balance: First, focus only on the balance of the tracks being sent to the reverb. Ignore how loud the reverb is in the mix for a moment. Just ask yourself: is the snare-to-tom-to-kick ratio that’s feeding the reverb creating a cool sound?
2. Turn the Reverb Off: Now, pull the main fader on your “Drum Verb” aux track all the way down. Listen to your completely dry drum bus.
3. Blend to Taste: With the full drum kit and mix playing, slowly push the “Drum Verb” fader up. Don’t listen for the reverb itself; listen for what it does to the drums. Find the spot where the individual drum shells start to connect and "gel" into a single unit. The moment you start to consciously hear the reverb as a separate "effect," you’ve probably gone too far.
4. Check Your Level: You will almost always find that the final reverb level is much quieter than you originally thought you needed it. It’s not uncommon to pull it down 5dB or more from where you first had it. The goal is feel, not just to hear a wash. It’s a subtle move that provides glue, similar to how a touch of bus compression or even parallel compression can tighten things up.

Putting It All Into Practice

Getting a killer drum sound is about more than just one plugin. It’s about a series of smart, intentional decisions. By using sends, being selective with what you process, and using a top-down blending method, you can add massive size and pro-level glue to your drums without sacrificing punch or clarity.

These techniques are the fundamentals that the pros use every day. But seeing them in action is a whole other level. Imagine watching producers like Will Putney, Dan Lancaster, or Eyal Levi actually dial in these settings on real sessions from bands like The Ghost Inside, Gojira, and Trivium. In the Nail The Mix sessions catalog, you can see our world-class instructors mix massive metal songs from scratch, explaining every move.

And for over 1,500 more tutorials like this covering every single step of the music production process, check out what’s available with a URM Enhanced membership.